THE WORLD : Why Not Break With Diplomatic Past and End Summits?

Now, in Year Five, PSU (Post-Soviet Union), military parades in Red Square and all the trappings of Cold War summitry seem like blasts from the diplomatic past. That such “summits” as that between Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin, set this Tuesday in Moscow, are still with us reflects not only the staleness of the debate in Washington but also the bureaucratic inertia that continues to dominate views of our former global rival.

As usual, the controversies of the moment--should Clinton travel to Moscow to honor VE Day after Yeltsin’s brutal repression in Chechnya and his sale of nuclear reactors to Iran--mostly miss the point. The beginning of wisdom would be to ask why we still have summits with Moscow? After all, Russia is no longer an ideological or even a strategic competitor. Beyond its over-the-shoulder presence in Central Europe and domination of the former Soviet republics, Moscow is, at best, a supporting actor on the world stage. In an era of geo-economics, its economy, only now showing signs of life, has a GNP that rivals Brazil’s.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the “threat” from Russia now, and in the decade or so ahead, is not its strength but its weakness: marginal national authority and political fragmentation; spotty control over nuclear materials; an ineffective legal system, and burgeoning organized crime and corruption. The indignity of such glaring sores, combined with a search for a post-Soviet identity, have rekindled old-time Russian nationalism, one shaped by geography and history.

Of course, Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons. But they are less the currency of power than a dangerous legacy of the past in a world of Bosnia-type conflicts. The far greater threat is Moscow’s inept management of its nuclear materials, a challenge that a bipartisan U.S. policy has made important progress in addressing.

A future closer to the truth is one of Russia as a major power in Europe, whose interests and those of the United States and the European Union will sometimes overlap, sometimes clash. Even if it eventually evolves into a more democratic, free-market state, Russia will continue to be buffeted by residual authoritarianism and expansive nationalism. For the near term at least, Moscow will be preoccupied with reasserting hegemony over the former Soviet republics and its great-power status in Eurasia.

This notion of Russia--along with the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and India--as one pole in a pluralistic world is the prism through which U.S.-Russian relations should be understood. The controversy over the sale of Russian nuclear reactors to Iran, which will probably be at the center of Tuesday’s discussions, is a prime example of the kinds of problems that a multipolar world produces.

For the United States, Iran’s support of terrorism, Islamic evangelism and nuclear ambitions push Tehran to the top of most-threatening-nations list. But wait.

As sinister as its intentions may be, Iran looks different when viewed from Moscow. Russia’s long history of living in Iran’s neighborhood has reinforced a modus vivendi that may, in U.S. eyes, cut moral corners. As a result, Moscow’s interests will not automatically coincide with those of the United States.

Practically speaking, for a Russian economy with a powerful nuclear-industrial complex and little competitive industry, a $1-billion sale means real money, especially if your client is playing by the nuclear rules. The Russians have a point when they say that Iran has gone out of its way to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections of its nascent nuclear program--including special inspections--while the United States supplies the same kind of light-water reactors to North Korea, which has been lied to the IAEA and has a far more advanced nuclear-weapons program.

Russia may cancel its planned sale of centrifuge technology, which would allow Tehran to produce bomb materials, to save Clinton some face. But its posture toward Iran is not that different from that of our allies in Europe and Asia, which continue to appease Iran. This is one of the uncomfortable realities of a more diverse world lacking a unified threat to hold it together.

There is another disturbing, though little noticed, factor behind Russia’s stance that also affects a broad swathe of nuclear issues. Russia’s nuclear ministry, MINATOM, operates almost as if it were a state within a state. A former Russian foreign-ministry official described its director, Viktor N. Mikhailov, as the equivalent of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Russia must realize that neither its nuclear arsenals nor the political theater of summitry will resurrect its great-power status. Only by building a dynamic economy and strengthening its democractic designs can Russia assure stability at home and a more prominent role abroad. Relations among the major powers are key to creating a stable structure of international relations. Russia is certainly one of the powers we must engage fully in this effort but without pretense or illusion--and more summits.